Monday, October 29, 2012

"Now, anyone working for OCBC Bank or its subsidiaries can squirrel away up to 15 days' leave and carry it forward to the next year so that they can stay home to help their child study for the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE)."[Link]
Here is what Minister Josephine Teo wrote in her Facebook:

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Minister Teo was badly criticised for what she said. The main issue with her remarks is she tried to apply her own situation to everyone. What her twins need to perform reasonably well may not be what is needed for other children and parents. Many parents were unhappy with her saying that OCBC move to support its staff during PSLE will "feed the fears of parents" - as if parents who take leave to help their children as irrationally fearful. She also said, "we are quite mistaken to behave as if PSLE is THE defining moment in a child’s development". It is easy for a parent to say this when his or her child is doing well and is self-motivated under the current system but lets spare some thought for the parents of children who are late bloomers, playful or haven't gotten round to focus on their academics. There is natural and understandable anxiety among these parents during the PSLE because our education system is a high stakes game, a few marks can decide if a child goes to "Normal Technical" stream where the chance of going to university drops to almost zero.

Make no mistake it is a high stakes game:

In my previous articles [Link, Link, Link], I wrote about the high stress that surrounds the PSLE exam. But I do not blame this on the parents, they are merely reacting to the system....and it is not "kiasuism", their fears are very real because the education system sorts children into various bins and with each bin is trapped in a certain expectation - this expectation shapes the achievements and the future of these children - Josephine Teo is wrong to say not the defining moment of a child's development - for many children it is, and the PSLE results is an important decider of their future.

Putting so much at stake and so much pressure of 12 year old children is very unhealthy and harms their long term development. It causes our children to over-achieve in the beginning and underachieve in the longer run because it puts the emphasis the wrong areas - exams over love of learning, learning fast vs deep understanding of basic principles.

To illustrate this lets look at some numbers. Suppose you take groups of students from various countries to test them. Lets take Israeli students, Hungarian students Austrian students, American students, Swedish students etc at age 14 , just after PSLE age and test them. Lets test them for math and instead of using all our students lets just have Malay students whom the PAP (the former PM Lee) frequently claims are weak at maths. Someone has actually done such a test [Link]and these are the results:

Fast off the starting blocks our students are pressure cooked to the point they are way ahead of everyone else. But education is a long distance thing not a short sprint and the important outcomes are measured at the end of their education not at the initial part. Despite this spectacular achievement at PSLE only 6% of our Malays students make it to university and even fewer to Science and Engineering....we only educate 27% of all our students to university level below the average of OECD countries....and our own govt prefers give university scholarship to foreigners than educate our world beating 12 year olds who rank number 1 in the world for maths and science. This is the dismal outcome of our education system.....all the extreme stress at PSLE yields very poor results at the end - this is the "work so hard for very little results" outcomes for the system. Compare this with the Israeli system that doesn't result in high exams scores in standardized testing - the score far lower that all our racial groups - but at the end they generate more than enough people for their high tech industry not to mention the highest Nobel Prize winner per capita in the world. Despite the frequent and sharp criticism of the Israeli system due to low test scores, there is one thing they do right ...and this secret makes a gigantic difference at the end in terms of final outcomes. I tell you what it is at the end of this posting.

Much of the student effort in our system which is now supplemented by a burgeoning tuition industry goes into trying to beat someone else at exams and achievement and ability is measured by exam scores....energy is spent getting yourself sorted to a better streams and schools. Such a system also does not distinguish us from the systems in China and India who can pressure cook more children and beat us by sheer numbers.

After putting our children through this pressuring system, the PAP govt tells us that it has to import foreign 'talents' to fill our university and generate economic growth and vibrancy. We have to invest wisely on education but what are we getting in the end? We have to educate each child to their fullest potential over a period of around 16 years not sort them out after 6 years and 'pigeon-hole' them into compartments of decline expectations. Such a system is great for social hierarchy with elite scholars occupying the apex in our society to provide top down directions....but where is the much needed creativity and innovation to propel us forward...in the end much social energy is lost in the sorting process as intense competition erodes the values of teamwork and cooperation that will elevate all in society not just the few to whom resources and opportunities has been disproportionately awarded

So what is the secret in the Israeli education system that makes it different? They spend the first 5-8 years of education encouraging their students to ask questions rather than teach them to answer questions. We do the opposite - we measure the success and achievement of a student and teachers by their ability to answer exam questions. Primary school education is all about learning the facts and methods to answer questions...and year after year the questions are made harder and harder differentiate students in terms of ability to answer questions. We destroy the ability of our students to challenge ideas because the faster the learn and accept, the better they do at the exams. This is why the Israeli system that produces 14 year old who are 19 places behind us in standardized maths and science tests come roaring back to over take us later. We start fast ...but they run further!...and it is the distance that matters.

290 comments:

I will pressure my children to excel in their studies, get government scholarships, work in stat boards and hopefully, be a minister in future. Then they can talk down to peasants, criticise their shortcomings, inabilities to manage their lives with their meagre income. Unlike those that are paid a king's ransom in the government service, who can afford anything they desire, including 1 to 1 private tutors to guide them thrugh the PSLE.

'We have to educate each child to their fullest potential over a period of around 16 years not sort them out after 6 years and 'pigeon-hole' them into compartments of decline expectations....'

This statement and what follows pretty much summarise it all. In spite of the likes of MP Teo who seems to understand this, our system of streaming and 'paratroopers' in management post is really heading the other direction.

I am a Millionaire Minister.I do not believe in stressing out my kids for PSLE.If my kids cannot enter Singapore University ... so what?No pressure.Just send the kids to overseas universities lor.What problem?

When I am a Millionaire Minister, no problem is too big for my children to overcome.

Minister Teo was badly criticised for what she said. The main issue with her remarks is she tried to apply her own situation to everyone. What her twins need to perform reasonably well may not be what is needed for other children and parents

AND THAT'S THE REASON WHY WE NEED TO GET RID OF THE MPs or change PARLIAMENT

As a teacher, there is an interesting anomaly i would like to share. In the secondary normal stream,they have a "though-train programme" where the better normal stream students are allowed to skip the N'levels or take partial O levels. These students i found them to be much smarter than the express students and some of JC calibre. But bear in mind not too long ago, they were not even allowed to take "A" Maths, which would eventually shaped their academic path.

As an educator, i find the concept of IQ theory too domineering. Our current system is built on the assumption of inherent capabilities of the child - and it cannot be changed hence PSLE - the need to separate the wheat from the chaff quickly.

I would prefer French psychologist Jean Piaget's view that cognitive skills opens up in stages, before the light bulb is lit, no amount of teaching would make the child understand, but once it is lit up, the child grasp the same concept easily. This theory fits my observation why some "normal sec 5 through train students have better cognitive skills than many express students - their light bulbs get lit later. However, these students would probably been denied of "A" maths and a certain academic pathway due to blind ideological belief to IQ theory.

In a society, somebody needs to be janitor. That is not a problem. I often spoken against the MOE system which puts too many Malay boys in ITE. But in fact, that do not really troubles me.

The real thing that trouble me is that our janitor are too lowly paid. I voice dissent when I see my Malay boys and girls going to ITE because I know many will end up getting very low salary. Many will suffer indignity.

If you go to Europe, the road sweeper, crane operator, waitor, cleaners are all happy. Why? The socialist system ensures everyone is well-paid, law puts everyone equal not like Singapore, where rich tramples the poor.

And European despite their easy life in school are producing top scientists in large numbers. The reason lies again in socialism. In SG, everyone are inculcate since young to stab one another. The PSLE follows a bell curve. The top 60% goes into express. So no matter how good you are, you need 40% to shit on.

That affects the whole society. Everyone in SG stab one another in office politics. Winners take all. LKY then chant the slogan wanting everyone to "compete", aka killing one another. Socialist society do not work on competition. Socialist society function on cooperation. In classroom, everyone help one another. In work place, we watch our colleagues and vice-versa.

The socialist Europe has their own streaming. The top 10% goes into "Gymnasium", which could be as tough as RI. You cannot do away with certain classification of students based on ability.

The top french elite goes into Grande Ecole, ENA, Science Po, in UK Oxbridge, in USA, Harvard...etc. Streaming has problem, we must mitigate it. Instead, PAP exerbate it. I was nearly kick to "Extended" (EM2-EM3 of my time) and "Normal", on more than one occasions.

I came from Hokkien speaking family and the first day in school, I was treated as a disciplinary problem because I cannot understand English instructions.

Getting low education is not a problem if a person work hard. In SG, PAP will screw you by importing FT. You get low salary, Your wife get unhappy and start to have family problem. Your sons result in shit but rich man son result good because he hires a professor as tutor. In the vicious cycle, you start to drink, take drug and gamble. Your life is gone. The culprit is not entirely you yourself, its PAP also.

Even if Singaporeans are all smarter than Einstein or Newton, be sure PAP is going to screw us 100 times harder.

Just look at our medical schools. Over the years, PAP and LKY friends created the medical cartel who sworn aim is to bankrupt Singaporeans. One of the approach is to reduced the students studying medicine.

Every year until recently, NUS med school only admit around 120 people. Many all A level As and S paper As students are rejected. Meanwhile, PAP import doctors from India, a country whose IQ is lowest in the whole world.

PAP goal is to use education to prevent Singaporeans from getting the necessary knowledge, especially in the more elite field. The positions would rather goes to Indian or Pinoy doctors, rather than to the outstanding Singaporeans.

Singaporeans must suffer no matter how clever we are. Forget about improving our education system, we must take down PAP first.

"Toward the end of the nineteenth century, America bought into the idea that along with industrialization and the mass production of goods that had been so successful in manufacturing things in recent years, it would be just dandy to mass produce education...and indoctrination...in people as well. The Prussians had recently developed this method of mandatory public education, and like many of the authoritarian nationalist schemes of that era it seemed like a pretty good idea to fledgling central planners everywhere. The climate in the U.S. at that point of rising xenophobia and the desire for uniformity in public thought helped set the stage for Progressives like Wilhelm Wundt, John Dewey, Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller (among others) to promulgate the collectivist and Statist objectives of their brand of enforced public education, and history shows that they were successful beyond their wildest dreams.

If you're not familiar with it, the Prussian system was a teaching methodology designed to stamp out good little worker bees assembly-line fashion, trained to be complacent with their station in life and compliant with every demand of the State. An elite of those better educated but still proven unquestioningly loyal to the State were promoted to lead the proletariat, rewarded with elevated status and material success commensurate with their skills and the zeal they demonstrate in supporting the system. It specifically avoided developing creativity and independent thought, reasoning these were skills the worker classes didn't need in their roles as mass produced labor." unquote.

Tragedy isn't it? Have to do what everyone else is doing just to stay level. Not even talking about being ahead. Damn! And the bar keeps rising for everyone just to stay level. Life is a bitch on this little red dot PERIOD.

I'm an MOE secondary school teacher and I teach all my students equally. There is no difference to me between the NT, NA and Express students.

I do not see a difference in my teaching but one day...an NT pupil of mine was happy yet very sad at the same time. He was happy that I treated him as no different from any other students from different streams but he confessed to me that he felt hopeless to have been in the NT stream as he wanted to go to a polytechnic but NT pupils are not allowed to after 4 years in secondary school. So he felt that my motivational words were misplaced.

So you're right. Streaming in primary and secondary affects students' self-esteem and I'm a living witness to that.

I concur with what Veritas said. I have seen it in my own life drama in Singapore here where office politics are fucking shitty. It has a lot to do with this intense competition taught to kids at a young impressionable age and I know the government wants us divided.

But Lucky, our culture here does not like people to ask too many questions. People who did so have been bankrupted, sacked, blacklisted by industry or even arrested.

Even in school, school leaders prefer teachers who are obedient and do not challenge the system. How do you expect a teacher who is a rule-follower to teach students to ask questions?

In any case, ministry has already mandated that teachers who only teach should be prepared to get a 'D' for work review, which would mean no promotion and no performance bonus. Teachers who want to focus on teaching have to be mentally prepared to see their teaching careers suffer.

Now, we have a case where most teachers are too busy or too smart to get caught up with their teaching. They are now more concerned about running non-teaching projects so as to ensure their work reviews don't suffer. Hence, many students now need to turn to tuition not because their parents are kiasu, but because the teachers are now en-masse cutting back on hours put into work related to teaching.

Have you ever talked to teachers? MOE doesn't dare to tell the parents about the generally low morale of teachers, and the mainstream media push the blame of tuition entirely to kiasu parents instead of MOE's poor policy planning towards teaching.

Right from the start, the basis of argument on the streaming system was down allocation of students according to their learning ability. Yet, one thing that the power brokers had sorely missed out is the resultant stigma coming from so-called the rest. This is something that requires proper education both at home and at school to resolve. And that's where the monkey comes in: The parents and teachers themselves are also victims of the society.Yes, I'll have to be fair to say that such a system was needed way back before the 21st century. This was due to the nation not having the overall resources to plan a longer run. 21st century is totally different as in development was quickly picked up due to new industries opening up the doors. And this is where the real problem lies: Failure to evolve the education policy.When people tend to base their own self worth on the social norms rather than themselves, we are giving birth to generations of dependent youths who are unable to stand on their own. For me, this is the biggest danger for the young and Minister Heng Swee Kiat's greatest challenge.

Despite all the high pressure in our Singapore educational system and despite all the investment in the education, what have these benefit Singaporean?

Ironically, Singaporeans, despite being highly educated, lose out and being replaced by foreigners because foreigners are so dirt cheap that bosses are addicted to them.

PAP has done great disservice to Singaporeans by having children going through tough educational system. When children grow up to become adults, PAP choose to open floodgate to enable tsunami of cheap foreigners to replace Singaporeans.

The sad thing is the ruling party have chosen party over nation. We educate our students to be efficient, obedient and hardworking workers and managers. In the past, it was workers in low end manufacturing. Now and in the future perhaps higher end manufacturing like pharma. All these to ensure growth in the coffers. Innovators and Entrepreneurs are encouraged in-name only. For the ruling party is well aware that innovators and entrepreneurs have a strong streak of independence in thinking. They analyse and they challenge. Can they accept masses of singaporeans with such critical thinking abilities? Nah. It was not too long ago that our leader have refused qs from overseas journalist when he visit the Pacific, choosing to only answer "always-can-be-counted-on" ST.

"Can they accept masses of singaporeans with such critical thinking abilities?"

the key test. do you get to learn more from others or learn more from them or the mainstream media on important issues that you think should be revealed by gahmen (via mainstream media) w/o even needing to ask for it.

I was just comparing the science syllabus for lower secondary together with my son who is in the express stream, we noticed that the topic, "Abuse of life processes, like drug and substance abuse" is found only in NT stream and not the other!! what a bloody discriminating insult and slur!!

Sudah lah! The nightmare of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is coming true in Singapore. Thanks to the 60%

I don't believe those in charge have a clue about the failings of the education system, and all other systems here.

How can you if you don't ask questions, don't challenge what's being done, don't argue and debate, don't hear criticism. How can you when career progress and promotions are determined by whether you are in the boss' good books and are falling in with what he says.

It doesn't help that on the surface it all seems to work, and pple are praising you for what you have. Like the new billion $ circle line, which looks good but keeps having problems.

From the way they literally parrot what everyone else is saying, it is obvious the ministers aren't plugged in. Heck, they can't even use different words from others when making an oft-rpted point.

Anyone understand what this now touted "vibrant economy" is about and what it involves? Grace Fu certainly doesn't, as she used this vague phrase in speaking to students and didn't explain it.

Scholar Lawrence Wong doesn't seem to be able to tell what a value is. Actually, I haven't heard the guy say one original thing yet.

So these are the products of our so-called world-class education system, which cant produce corp leaders, entreprenuers and even ordinary workers, going by the way foreigners are hired. Yet, the old so-called chowkah system could produce such pple. Obviously, something is seriously wrong, and not just in education.

I hate to say this but for once i do not agree with mr lucky. As an educator for the past 15 years, i can tell u that those who excel academically at 12 years old r really worth seiving out to stretch them. The longer they r grouped with the masses instead of being put into elite schools, the more their potential goes wasted. why shd we hold back these kids for the rest who r not motivated for whatever reasons. u hav to teach in schools to know what i mean. 80% of kids nowadays are not hardworking. so whose fault is it that they dun know this n that during assessments.

I known of someone who entered school without knowing a single word of english or mandarin. He did not even attended kindergarten. In primary school, he struggled until P5. Failed maths in P5. At P6, he started to improved. Later on, in secondary school, he made vast improvement and top the school. Went to a elite JC and emerged as a one of top students. Got a scholarship, went overseas and top his uni. If this guy went through the current system, he may end up in ITE.

During my time, when you fail English, you get kick to junk stream. Me nearly kana a few times. I hate this system. Ample evidence has shown that many people good in Math and Science are extremely weak in languages.

I came from Hokkien family. Day one in primary school my nightmare begins. I was a disciplinary problem for many years because I do not understand a single word from my teacher, teaching everything other than mother tongue in English.

Put it this way, our system is rigged by PAP to produce clone copies of banana like themselves. Those acultural shameless peranakan conduct culture genocide against all other races. You can be good in other things, once you fail English, get lost.

So far, Chinese and Indian succumb to banana-zation. Only Malay hold on abet weekly to their culture.

Someone of my intelligence (although not superlative but clever enough either) is close to NT stream.

Why should upgraders to condo get to keep their hdb flat and profit from the rental of their hdb unit when they move into their swanky new condo in land scarce sg? Wouldn't that tightened supply of resale HDB and drive up prices?

I remember asking questions in Biography in Secondary School, asking why things work in this particular way. I remember being scolded and asked to read the book. The same teacher also threw our test papers in the bin and shouted at all of us cause we didn't do well as compared to the Triple Science class.

We are bred to read, regurgitate and be rewarded for it. No other questions should be asked. Nevertheless, Biography became my worst subject and I detested studying for it. Sometimes, its also about the teachers you get.

In most countries, when workers go on strike or complain about poor working conditions, they get promises of better pay and working conditions.-In our MOE, this is what they have done to teachers1) remove pension scheme. Your CONNECT plan pays much less than pension scheme, by at least 67%+2) if you complain, they tell you to quit. There is no talk about improving the lot of teachers.+3) you complain, they load you with even more initiatives. They totally are thinking of putting up a bigger opera show. Most of them only promote because of all these show, and not because they did something concrete=Just do your job, collect your pay and spend time with your kids. The ‘D’ grade is that big deal?? Then I suggest you manage your finances better, so that you can’t be so easily threatened. If the principal realize that you are not scared of ‘D’, she will be scared of you.She try to be funny with you, you tell her off. ‘D’ grade big deal ah? But till then, enjoy getting your balls squeezed hard if you scared of the ‘D’ grade.

I threw in the towel after yrs of teaching in a sec sch. My husband is still teaching. I remembered when we were still in the profession together, we would wake at 5am, leave the house at 6am and be home after 6pm, only to eat our dinner in silence. Reason? We were simply too tired to engage in any conversation after a long day of teaching, meetings, admin etc. We would then proceed to the study room to complete markings, prepare lessons and needless to say, more admin which could now be accessed from home. (School-related emails used to be only accessible from school’s network) Whoever finished the work first would hit the sack. It was not an uncommon sight to see our lights still on at 2am. Couple time had to be created. To make things easier, we would sit down and do our respective markings together. This help to create little windows for us to make casual remarks every now and then. Having children was placed on hold because we were both doing very well. Don’t get me wrong, we love our jobs. The joy from spending time with students in the classroom is irreplaceable. It is true that we are often overwhelmed by long meetings, courses and admin work such as collecting money, giro forms etc but we held onto the little joys we get from our students to keep us going.

When we finally have kids, I found it difficult to juggle the long hours and minding the kids. My parents and parents-in-law are getting old and finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with the children. I tried the different schemes that MOE has put in place, half-load, 3/4 load, flexi-adjunct, but principals have a lot of control over how they want to ‘operate’ the schemes. A lot of my friends, and myself included, ended up getting the full load but half the pay. Some of my luckier friends get a lot of support from their principals and they find it a lot easier to manage work and family. As a result, they are happier and more willing to commit at work.

Guess after more so many years in teaching, something just had to go as we made the decision to focus on the children. I quitted my job. My husband was very supportive as he, too, is a victim of the system. I find it easier to support him in his career because I have been through the path. Should he come home late and had to shut himself in the study room, I would make sure the kids do not disturb him. We would discuss his students and the best approach to help them achieve their potential. I must admit that if I had been in another profession, we would probably have countless arguments because of his long hours.

I know of one teacher in a JC. Used to teach computer sci but now comp sci at JC has very few students. So switch to pastoral care. Everyday shake legs and collect money whereas her colleagues got to struggle with full teaching workloads.

I really felt unappreciated being a teacher once my principal said that school holiday is meant for students and not for the teachers, we are being paid, so we should stop complaining even we are forced to come back everyday during school holiday. I felt really demoralised being a teacher!

From my teaching internship experience: Teaching is one of the dumbest jobs i have tried out and i will never fall into that trap ever again. Politics, Stupid no-brain ruffian kids (teenage boys), endless worksheets to prepare (just so kids have something to do), and the damn politics.. n waking up at 5am and leaving at 5pm, expectated to do remedial, cca n all that crap. Waste of time. If youi have the brains, go do something better. Make full use of your talent in raking in the $ instead of getting sucked into the teaching hole!

As what is said, I believe that Singapore wants the best for its nation especially in terms of education. But somehow down the years, the passion became incredibly lesser. As a teacher in SPECIAL SCHOOL a non -profitable organisation , for more than a decade, we can feel this too. The school takes lots of good initiative to enhance the learning in benefiting its pupils. But the initiatives, projects and administrative work throughout on going one after another through each year makes us feel exhausted.

As you know that in special school patience and passion must be in build in each of us in order to teach in this line. We had to customised individual needs of the pupils and intervene behavioral problem and some instances can be occupational hazard during work.We do spent our own pocket money and getting things for the kids for rewards and promote encouragement in learning.Mentally and physically we are tired after the half day work.

MOE initiaves to special school has also contributed additional administrative work . We understand our P postion and nothing much we can say much but to comply.

For those with family, at times there is conflict between spouse as what we called after work time or quality time on weekends is taken up by school work. We can also see the trend of teacher getting sick is more and this create difficulty for the P to get relief teachers to cover the class of SPECIAL STUDENTS.

I know that in special school, we that we are less priveleges than MOE school, but we contribute because of passion in teaching special children which is very challenging. It is sad if the stressload overcome the passion in teaching.Many good dedicated teachers will say GOODBYE to teaching.

Teachers are generally under-appreciated in many countries and are often overworked. Like safety of teachers in UK sometimes face threats from students, apart from the work?

As for suggestions… I’m not a teacher but I’ve friends who are teachers and I find it odd that a lecturer in a university can concentrate on teaching while leaving administrative work to the administrators but a teacher in a primary or secondary school have to manage most things by themselves. Surely the government can afford to spend more on education? Like getting assistants or more admin staff for the teachers to do the administrative work? Part-time teachers to handle the remedial classes so the full-time teachers can concentrate on their own load? If this keeps up, there won’t be anymore quality teachers in Singapore because those who are good are overloaded, drained to the point that to survive, they have to quit for the sake of their health and own lives. Teachers aren’t martyrs, so don’t treat them like one. Anyway, if teachers are able to have better worklife balance and time to rest and recharge, doesn’t it work more to the students’ benefit and thus benefit the country as well? It becomes a cycle really, so I think it makes sense to have this worked out as severely overloaded teachers is already a long standing issue. Better have this solved sooner before there aren’t any experienced teachers left cos’ those remaining are all freshmen. This is not helpful in the long run. No offense meant to fresh teachers.

Yes, teachers are very, very overworked. I have come to know this and be mentally well-prepared before I joined the teaching profession but I still overwhelmed with the markings, lesson preparations, CCA admin work, bringing students to competitions, committee works, camps, remedials etc. My weekends are burnt by markings. I don’t have social life at all before Jun & Dec school holidays. In between, 1-2 school holidays are for me to catch up my markings. Not because I cannot manage my time well, it’s because there are too much markings! Sat and Sun are not even enough!

I did indicate in the annual surveys that I had no work-life balance but I do not think it works. If you make too much noise, your boss will think that you cannot juggle between your work life and personal life which reflects your low working efficiency and incapability. So even when my new principal said to us: don’t work too hard and take care of your health, I do not know how much I can believe and follow. Irony, isn’t it?

I really hope that MOE will do something, otherwise they will only lose more and more teachers, then they have to recruit more new teachers and re-train, lose them again and continue the vicious cycle. What’s the point? (Answer : The point is that beginning teacher's pay is much less than an experienced teacher's pay. So MOE wants experienced teachers to quit every year, more newbie cheaper teachers come in every year, so that MOE can save on that money, and use that money to stuff into their own pockets. MOE HQ superscale officers pay themselves $10k, $12k, $15k++ every month, doing MUCH less than half the workload and the associated emotional, mental, social, family and medical stresses & suffering of a $2k teacher. That's the point.)

Are teacher willing to reduce their pay in order to add extra man-power? World wide teachers' salary are generally lower than others. In SG a 5 year teacher can get 5K.

Teacher should also get their enemy right.

Few teacher are succint enough to aware that ranking game is extremely skewed against "ordinary teacher". In MOE, there are vest groups. Many "old bird" teacher cannot be rank low. They idle all the way taking "light CCA" such as badminton, soccer.

Also, ranking cannot touch those scholars, "white horse", rich man son, "this and this son", beautiful girl, aggressive alpha male....etc. Hence the potential D candidate are not so big. So generally those beta kind people got around 30-60%% to get a D within 5 years.

Many of the privilege teacher also got into duties that wont usually cocks them up. They are enough time to focus on core duty. Also any chance to show performance are given to them.

Private school teacher dont have problem while MOE teacher curse and swear.

Problem in MOE is not workload but a bunch of cabal gaming the system and terrorizing rookies. The solution is not less ranking but real ranking. We need to fire the cabal, the MOE cartel.

The best way to do it is to use school coupon. We can use school coupon to bankrupt incompetent schools. Today when schools are run into shit and go out of business, MOE transfer those old idiot elsewhere saving their jobs.

In the school coupon system, those bankrupt schools staff straight away get out of job.

After a few iteration, in order to survive the school management will fire all those useless people, and office politics will go down.

Can’t those people (who dismiss the plight of teachers) tell that this forum is about teachers who are overworked and stressed? The teachers DID NOT tell the whole world that they have the lousiest job in the world! They just want to share their problems with others in this forum. From this forum I can tell that those outside the teaching field really have no idea what teachers go through. Once I was also one of them. The NIE training thing is like a “American Dream” to me and my husband. So he applied for NIE, and bond for THREE years. There is no way out for a financially strapped teacher when you are bonded. Teachers are not asking for pity in this forum, they are asking for emphathy. BUt I understand that in 21st century, people don’t practice that kind of virtue anymore.

A certain teacher I know was tasked by his HOD/principal to take care of some animals after school hours as part of an initiative undertaken by the school. Staff abuse + waste of expensive man hours. Principals probably do not feel the pain since they are not the one paying their teacher’s salary, but you slave drivers will see that your abusive actions will eventually lead to a drop in their productivity and result in high staff turnover rate. I have a good feeling that teachers are quitting like nobody’s business nowadays. Pity to teachers who joined with a passion to teach but are fulfilling unrealistic and unreasonable expectations.

Teachers are stressed so are anyone who have a job here. Just go and ask any cleaner at any foodcourt. The problem is any system with an asshole leader sucks. How suck it is will depend on how asshole the leader is. The fault does not lie with MOE alone, it is in every ministry with an asshole leader.

The role of a minister is to think and inplace of a "A" graded-policy that the mass public would see the policy benefit the public. With ministers claiming themselves elite drawing millions of dollars of pay check is unable to deliever what the public expect them to deliever, deserve to be replaced.

Come on…stop grumbling…what makes you guys think that you are the only ones? I work as a software engineer and my hours easily extend from 8am to >10 pm…weekends are often spent on more programming which I’m not able to complete during the week. Am I complaining?No! In fact I enjoy it. Embrace and enjoy your work and it would not feel like work anymore!!! Education should not be a job which you throw away at 5 pm sharp everyday!!! So stop complaining!! <<<

To the person lx above,

Have you taught as a full-fledged teacher before?

HAve you thought about why so many and i dare dare say vast majority of teachers are complaining out loud or suffering in silence?

If your line of work or other line of work has too much other things to do except what your job title says, i am sure others will pour in their support for you. You are programmer in your company and how would you feel if your company ask you to do tasks not related to programming which takes up 80% of your time in office and out of it? Would you still “Embrace and enjoy your work and it would not feel like work anymore!!! “?

How would you feel if you have 4 weeks of “holidays” as perceived by others but 1st 2 weeks you have to go back to school to teach almost like normal school hours or even longer. And then the last week is as good as gone because there will be the school contact time, and other department, committee meetings and actually you have 1 week or so left?

Many other points have been mentioned by others in close to 4000 posts already so i will not repeat.

Scrape the IP program. PERIOD. It has made the PSLE the single most important exam. And kiasu parents know as long as they provide enough tuition n rote learning, one can do well in PSLE including memorizing essays. Once you get into IP It's through train to uni liao no need to fight JC places.

I am not a teacher, but when i see some of my teacher work, i feel so indignant for them. Especially when they are a very kind teacher and have patience to teach (can teach type).

Not only need to tolerate bullshits from rebellious students and also stupid admin works like collecting donation for charity.

This is what happen: the school issue a small envelope by some organization for charity. And note this is a DONATION. And being student (teens), alot of them will either lose they're envolope or choose not to donate. Meaning either they lose the envelope or they hand up the envelope empty or with the envolope filled with 10 cent coins.

THEN, this stupid school is not happy with the amount of donation. And the HODs begin to stress my poor teacher, they keep chasing us for $. my teacher was so stressed. Then some of us questioned, we can either donate or NOT right? so we don't want to donate, why keep chasing??? Then my teacher explained... blah blah blah... but still students are not satisfied and end up she became more stress. The HODs are such a pain in the neck. My teacher broke down to tears a few times in class.

A series of stupid incidents happened too, lazy to type them all out.

Not only need to tolerate shits from HODs, rebellious students and office politics, the teacher's personal life gets affected as well. Being in such stressful environment, need to prepare this prepare that for the students, do this do that, like a mistreated nanny. Bad mood will affect lovelife and so on and on... then on the crucial year, my O level year, my teacher could not take it anymore. she went overseas to catch up with her lovelife. And i was so devastated, coz she taught very well. And my class kept on changing teachers, coz the was a short of teachers. Students studies was affected greatly as the teachers was not stagnant, today ms A tmr change to ms X. =.=...

My teacher was kind enough to tell me whats going on in her life... and i stopped whining (coz she was leaving and i was so unhappy there will be a change in teaching) coz i feel so bad when i know what she has been thru. she even apologize for not able to teach anymore. So much for being a dedicated teacher...

She now had return to teaching again. Coz she just love to teach. I hope she gets a promotion. Hope she is well. And MOE should definately do more to credit their teachers....

MOE teachers get a raw deal. All the young teachers in MOE can't afford to retire as they have a HDB loan to pay for 30 years. Or 20 years if their wives decide to co-pay. Most of these teachers marrying age is from 28 to 35 years old. Those who do not get married by 35, are often married to their jobs instead. If a male teacher were to be married at age 35 and he supports a family soley on his income, he would be 65 years old when he finished his home loan based on today's prices. Such a teacher can't retire even at 65 years old. He has to continue to work in his twilight years to survive.

Many young MOE teachers today have a raw deal. What is disheartening to fathom is if young MOE teachers can't survive in their 60s, what does that speak for the average Singaporeans who are not in the teaching fraternity?

Today, it is a challenging for men to earn the bread for the family in Singapore alone because of the rising cost of living. This is a real matter and the fabric of the society is becoming soft.

I told my O-Level students to study well as I pointed to the price of the HDB flat from the classroom and enlightened them it costs $425 000 for the 4-room resale flat if they wanted to seek shelter in it some day.

The other day, in the school cafeteria, some male teachers were sighing that they were concerned that many of their students - what more those in the NT streams - would have an excruciating time getting a job and a roof above their heads when they leave the school.

In the school that I'm teaching, it is a secondary school; more than 30% of the female teachers are singles and 8 out of 10 of them are past their 30s. 2 out 5 of the male teachers are not married and they are past their 40s.

Work-life balance has been a serious problem in MOE secondary schools. Even Yahoo did an article some time ago about overworked Singapore teachers. Ask any teacher how frequent MCs are taken among teachers because of the punishing workloads and deadlines. Mr. Tan, even principals now take number of MCs as a measure to award D grades to teachers. It is an open booking in MOE schools that their teachers are most unhappy with the ranking system. Except the Principal of course. And did you know that most principals are politically appointed?

In the school that I'm teaching, it is a secondary school; more than 30% of the female teachers are singles and 8 out of 10 of them are past their 30s.

This is because female teachers are paid too well. Generally a above average male teacher get 5k in 5 years and female hit 5k in 6-7 years. This amount of $$$ is equivalent to assistant manager outside.

Hence female teacher think they very talent and despise everyone outside. I was a teacher. I can verified most MOE teachers are extremely stupid people. The engineer outside receiving pittance salary due to FT influx are much more clever.

My former schools has many such narcissist teachers. I think they hope one day they get marry some tycoon and become tai tais.

The pay of civil service is really way too high. Its a toxic that poison people's mind. Civil servant do not know their own place and keep thinking they are talent.

I was a MOE teacher. The pay is nice. The price to pay is I need to rub shoulders with a bunch of stupid, wicked and mad colleagues. The principal, VP and HOD are clearly pervert and evil. However the seems to believe that they are "kind", and believe they are doing the "right" things.

Many of these people and teachers never seens the outside world. They keep on telling us "MOE is kind and gentle and take care of its staff. Outside has more politics and people can get fired easily".

I nearly want to vomit.

I dont think I want rub shoulders with these nuts.

Now I ROD MOE. I am outside, making more salary than teachers. I still can fxxk my boss.

kudos to Lucky for coming up with this insighful article! You've really opened my eyes and I can't agree more with what you've said. The system creates talents who are great followers and operators of an existing system. Put in place the process and they can operate it very well. But where we fail is to nurture talents who are creators. Create breakthroughs or a revolutionary method, alternative methods. Cooker house countries like China ( No nobel winner) and Korea (Galaxy / Android) also produces talents which are good at improving and already existent product or process. But not being able to create breakthroughs. At the end of the day, it is the distance that counts and sprint so fast in the beginning only to sputter at the end.

What you said is for early bloomers. But we know for a fact there are late bloomers out there. Another educator has already confirmed that NA or NT affect self esteem of students. This is a vicious cycle where even if there is talent behind the late bloomer may be put out by the education system. And we know there are later bloomers just read news where ITE grad came up to take on PHd course in NUS. Need also to be aware of this.

"There’s nothing meritocratic about capitalism in the market sense as far as entrepreneurs go. Sure, a few inventors get rich, and now there is a “brains capitalism” whereby smart, nerdy types set up companies, often in IT and the like, using the cognitive talents to make money as entrepreneurs.

But businessmen in general all down through history have simply had good people smarts, a lot of ruthlessness, extroversion and mostly a lot of luck. Capitalism is hardly a meritocracy!" unquote.

(Questions of Meritocracy under Capitalism and Socialism Robert Lindsay)http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/questions-of-meritocracy-under-capitalism-and-socialism/

(Singapore Notes Time To Go)http://singaporedesk.blogspot.sg/2012/10/time-to-go.html

People can just learn and study at home using computer these days and take tests at home. No need to go schools, take transport, take exams, get insults from stupid teachers, pay tuition, get brainwashed, pay for useless books, participate in useless ECAs, lick teachers boots including sex etc.

so you think they teachers are overpaid ... what are the reasons for that... politics?so you said they teachers are quite stupid and that is interesting becos I never look at it that way.. please elaborate why you think like that?

Teachers are definitely more clever than others as a political animals. And they are much better in stooging themselves till depravity.

Every week, teachers got to endure at least 4 hours or up till 10 hours of shit meeting, doing nothing other than making a clown of themselves. They really know how to endure the humiliations. In the meetings, teachers are forced into performing skits like a joker in all sorts of funny funny scenarios. The sole aim of these is to psychologically masturbate the principals, who seems to be the most ecstatic in such comedy(tragedy)?

No one rebel. (I rebel big time and I make sure I give those P, VP, HOD something they cannot forget)

Teachers peer pressure one another to stooge and to forgo justice. Whenever, teachers get bullied in schools, the colleagues will always victim blaming.

"You should not have done this and that...etc"

"Its your fault... You should not give the HOD bad impression in the first place"

Welcome to the "warm" family of MOE.

Teachers kill one another. They got to make sure their neighbor get a D.

Teachers are coward and they toll the party line. In MOE, any good feedback, so long you are against the principal and HOD, you will be crucified. They will accuse you of "NOT POSITIVE".

So long you carry balls, your boss will say you are "enthusiastic" and "positive".

Teachers are smart in certain way la.

And engineers are stupid in many ways. Engineers often voice dissent and objections. We are frank and direct.

I was an ex-teacher. i can attest to the fact tat most teachers low in ability and agree with veritas. however, reading abt veritas comments only helps me to confirm tat he is one of those but didnt realise it himself. really high ability ones like.myself quit becos we saw too many teachers like veritas.

"Nevertheless there are empirical evidence showing engineers IQ is higher than teachers. My current occupation EECS engineer is the higest IQ after doctor and professor."

The highest IQ, ministers aka scholars?

Is that the way it should be? If this helps, it is akin to grading national footballers, swimmers, polo players on basis of educational qualifications. Only idiots like those of us accept these BS that no other countries, advanced anot has that. The Party has succeeded in conning bonkers like you.

Hey guys, cool down. I am just being purposefully cynical to provide some humor and to jolt you guys thinking into the problems deeper. And thanks for all your nasty remarks against me. I make me amuse somehow but I take pride that I manage to provoke you all into anger.

MOE has many problems and its the main culprit of many misery in our society. That I have no doubt. But one should not underlook the collective cowardice and wickedness of the teacher community at the whole in inflicting shit on themselves.

Everyone in MOE knew teacher want their neighbours to get a D. Isn't that a big wickedness?

Have anyone curse their HOD in front of his face like I proudly did? If you guys who left MOE scolded FXXX YOU to every P, VP and HOD on the last day, I believe MOE will be a better place.

Have anyone throw a punch on P or VP? In my last few months, when my former P and VP and to meet me, they often got to throw in other staffs to escort me inside office in case I resort to violence and verbal abuse or shout at their face.

The fact that engineers are having a much better quality of workplace culture is due to our innate nature to rebel following the tradition of Bill Gate, the those google guys.

The engineers definitely has more balls and speak more truth.

Teachers are liars.

And to give a deeper understanding of teacher's psyche and their problem, I would use a parable. Teachers are like the most shameless whore who fell in love with their pimps. The P, VP and HOD are pimps that sexually exploit those whore for monies and at the same time despise those their prostitute. At the same time, the whores backstabbed one another hopping that they will be the favorite pet of their pimps.

The whore prostitute their body to please the pimp. But then the whores slowly realise that their lover-pimp are not only unappreciative, but actually wanted to shit on the whore more and more. After so many transaction, the pimp rank the whore grade "D".

The whore get distraughted.

This is why every teachers or civil servant are so upset when they get a D. You never see a engineer, doctor or others whine about getting a low ranking.

Teachers, wake up from your illusion and fantasy. Sorry for the tone of this writing, I just want you all to see the reality.

Stop your dreams and take up arms. Be a man, stand up straight and FIGHT.

By your account, it definitely sounds to me that teaching has indeed been the toughest job on earth, or at least Singapore. Which crazy job would have one resort to violence or expletives when meeting his superior/s? It sounds to me that the job has disillusioned and distraught you to the point of being almost mad or at least psychologically unbalanced.

But I must commend you on the infinite courage you have demonstrated. Indeed, teachers are cowards. We don't dare to sue our HOD who character-assassinates us in order to force a D on us because we know that no teacher would win MOE and MOE would take up the case against us should we challenge our HOD/s. Teachers don't dare to vote against PAP because we are civil servants. Teachers do a host of ridiculous work that has nothing to do with teaching for the sake of glorifying the HODs' appraisal and suffer in silence. Yes, this I agree with you - wholeheartedly: we are true blue cowards.

After training of 1 to 4 years, and bonded to the job for at least 3 years, I'm not sure how many of us have the luxury of youth to start from scratch, especially those with kids to support. Sure. It's easy to say 'dump the inhuman job', provided you are still in your coveted twenties and a swinging single.

You also sound like you have been spurned by a few 'narcissistic' girls in teaching. How strange that you keep running into female teachers who believe that they are incredibly beautiful and talented when most female teachers I know would have been humbled by the job within a year - physically especially. Get a life, Veritas!

Veritas, your record cant be worse than mine. i had '3' consecutive D grades in my 4.5 yrs in teaching. why? becos the more senior teachers and my supervisor told lies about me that i could not defend myself with. i was suffering so.much i was suicidal. Ever since i quitted teaching to safe my own life, i told myself to prove myself to those evil pple tat i am super capable. within a short span of 3 years i hav established myself as a pte tutor n enjoy the respect of theparents in my estate. moreover, i am highly sought after by many rich and famous pple in sg to teach their kids. a lot of children i teach are 1st or top few in diff schools. there are many evil pple in teaching who will do anything to make others get the D. I was an insurance agent before n i can tell u teachers r less ethical than insurance agents.

Veritas, your record cant be worse than mine. i had '3' consecutive D grades in my 4.5 yrs in teaching. why? becos the more senior teachers and my supervisor told lies about me that i could not defend myself with. i was suffering so.much i was suicidal. Ever since i quitted teaching to safe my own life, i told myself to prove myself to those evil pple tat i am super capable. within a short span of 3 years i hav established myself as a pte tutor n enjoy the respect of theparents in my estate. moreover, i am highly sought after by many rich and famous pple in sg to teach their kids. a lot of children i teach are 1st or top few in diff schools. there are many evil pple in teaching who will do anything to make others get the D. I was an insurance agent before n i can tell u teachers r less ethical than insurance agents.

I am proud of you. You could do better by screwing your boss hard before ROD. I bet they would dare touch one piece of your hair.

Veritas no balls lah.

I am really angry with your statement. You can say I not so smart but having a big "lan pa" is the proudest thing in my whole life, unlike MOE teachers.

If you go and look at the dick of MOE teachers, I bet most of them cannot erect or suffer pre-mature ejaculation. They are no longer a man. From their behavior, they cannot stand. They cannot stand as a MAN. They are bapo.

Which crazy job would have one resort to violence or expletives when meeting his superior/s? It sounds to me that the job has disillusioned and distraught you to the point of being almost mad or at least psychologically unbalanced.

You are right that I may be distraught. But after I vented manhood on my bosses, I am cured. You teachers in MOE keep on complaining here because you haven enjoyed the ecstasy of fucking your MOE boss.

Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modem schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three traditional goals listed earlier:

1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.

Against School - John Taylor Gattohttp://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm

Family Times - Dumbing Us Down The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schoolinghttp://www.homeeducator.com/FamilyTimes/articles/10-4article4.htm

The Exhausted School, by John Taylor Gattohttp://www.scribd.com/doc/6129182/The-Exhausted-School-by-John-Taylor-Gatto

‘THE EXHAUSTED SCHOOL How Did We Ever Come to Believe that the State Should Tell Our Children What to Thinkhttp://www.abundanthope.net/pages/True_US_History_108/THE_EXHAUSTED_SCHOOL_How_Did_We_Ever_Come_to_Belie_2504_printer.shtml

Veritas, tell us which school you worked in! At least we can know which HOD and principal are the real jerks, and we can avoid that school.

I know of some schools that are horror schools for teachers. Teachers who teach in those schools are usually traumatized for life. And the problem is not with the students. The problem is always with the politics in the staff room.

Never be fooled by all those motivational posters placed up in school. Most of the school leaders and teachers don't practice what they preach.

The ranking system in the MOE is tearing the teaching fraternity apart. It's a divide-and-rule tactic.

I was a teacher before too, at a secondary school. It's been a long time and I don't know how things are now. I asked my friends who are still teaching how things have changed under HSK and they say - no diff. I'm not optimistic.

I want to point to the big debate in the US now about evaluating teachers based on "value-add" in results of students in standardised tests. US teachers are resisting it, while US school administrators and public authorities are trying to implement it. Singapore has been running under this system for a long time. For the worse, in my opinion. You can look at the debate in the US, and at Europe (e.g. Finland) for the pros and cons of various education policies. But I can't prove it for Singapore. Because...

The thing about Singapore is - civil servants say what their superiors want to hear. The media publishes what our leaders want to hear. The voices of the REAL stakeholders, the students, the parents, the teachers, are seldom heard. I want to speak up - but I am just a lone voice. I have no institutions to speak for me. No unions. No think-tanks.

After many years of thinking about society and politics, I have come to the conclusion that the key thing to tackle is power. Societal outcomes favour whoever has power, whether they are the politicians, the mob, the church, the middle class, etc. I hear very often Singaporeans feel powerless, that their actions are futile. That's precisely what I felt and still feel myself.

The first thing we can do towards changing that is to foster and cultivate multi-party politics. We must restore a vibrant and effective voting system that can put in place the leaders that do what the people want. We can do it, if we do the right thing at the ballot box come 2016.

I have also thought a lot about the society that I live in and its politics too. And what I have gathered for myself, frankly, is to leave it. So, I am saving money and making plans to move out of Singapore. Just like the PRCs and Indian nationals who left China and India and come here to work, I, too, am following suit. There are about 160 000 Singaporeans working overseas and I am joining that number.

There is no point feeling bad and negative and deliberating so much of these matters as they frustrated me a lot. I often feel low and frustrated when I read the news from the critical perspectives offered on the net.

I have decided to work overseas and am working towards it. In fact, I'm signing up for a language lesson next week to the country that I'm seeking work. I have learnt to mention it to my family or anyone and quietly and tenaciously work towards it.

This is the life I have chosen for myself and Singapore is not it. There is more to life than Singapore's hypocrisy. I will keep my pick ic though.

Everyday, I wake up, feeling stronger and more confident that I won't need to live in this microscopic factory island all my life. Life is too short to get mad at PAP. I want to leave this place.

This is no longer home. It's going to different for different people. But for me, personally, I already feel like an alien in Singapore. I rather go the full swing and be a complete alien in another country.

I have had enough of Singapore's bullshit and the values of this present administration which is creating a society of haves and have nots and have mores. Singapore is really divided today and Singaporeans are no longer nice nor pleasant people they used to be.

I can't change Singapore and its politics but I can choose to live my life as I want it while I can.

Singapore is just a short-term occupancy hotel; we're a migrant society making way for another future migrant society to take over us.

We have a case where directors of MOE, most of whom were never teachers, are now telling teachers how to teach and what makes a good teacher. In the meanwhile, every teacher knows that these directors are talking nonsense.

It seems tat many sch teachers visit lucky's blog. i agree tat sch teachers r grossly overpaid. but if they r not paid this amt, more will leave the service n the classrooms will not even have teachers in them. its to solve the supply prob. but in the end, u get teachers who stay for money n not for the students. The HR side just want to solve the manpower issues without thinking abt the consequences.

So do u? i depise people like u. others r highlighting something whereas u only know how to put people down. i think u r the same person who had posted many such f-up comments on other threads as i noticed u like to use the phrase 'tio bo'.

"I have had enough of Singapore's bullshit and the values of this present administration which is creating a society of haves and have nots and have mores. Singapore is really divided today and Singaporeans are no longer nice nor pleasant people they used to be."

Precisely becos i was one so i know. u tell me a pay of 80k taxable income by the 7th yr in the job is not iverpaid for the kind if work u do? if u put that figure into iras website n chk where ur pay lies, it is actually in the top 25% of wage earners in sg alr lor.

Too many adults I met take pride in bragging about their poor working environment.

You tell them about how shitty your job is, and instead of getting support or empathy, they will give you the 'So what?' attitude and proceed to tell you that compared to their boss, you are living in paradise.

Eventually, you discover that such people wear their overworked lifestyle as a badge of honour, and they take pride in bullying their own staff on the grounds that they themselves went through hell.

If people think teachers are overpaid, get 4 weeks of holidays in June, 8 weeks of holiday in Nov-Dec, 1 week of holiday in March and 1 Week of holiday in Sept, please feel free to quit your own job and join MOE!

Don't be a complain-king and bitch about how bad your job is and how lucky teachers are! Please quit your job to join teaching! MOE has shortage of teachers!

If teachers r overpaid then those saf regulars are obscenely overpaid. teachers do not necessary vote for pap as a lot i know are pissed off with the.job n plan to quit. those in other ministries that i know of r the ones who really voted for pap as they intend to b long term civil servants.

"... school leaders prefer teachers who are obedient and do not challenge the system. How do you expect a teacher who is a rule-follower to teach students to ask questions?"

"..., ministry has already mandated that teachers who only teach should be prepared to get a 'D' for work review, which would mean no promotion and no performance bonus. Teachers who want to focus on teaching have to be mentally prepared to see their teaching careers suffer."

So "most teachers are too busy or too smart to get caught up with their teaching. They are now more concerned about running non-teaching projects so as to ensure their work reviews don't suffer. Hence, many students now need to turn to tuition not because their parents are kiasu, but because the teachers are now en-masse cutting back on hours put into work related to teaching."

What one of the forumers said below about what happens in Singapore schools is true. I have taught in Singapore schools for over twenty years.

"In our MOE, this is what they have done to teachers1) remove pension scheme. Your CONNECT plan pays much less than pension scheme, by at least 67%+2) if you complain, they tell you to quit. There is no talk about improving the lot of teachers.+3) you complain, they load you with even more initiatives. They totally are thinking of putting up a bigger opera show. Most of them only promote because of all these show, and not because they did something concrete=Just do your job, collect your pay and spend time with your kids. The ‘D’ grade is that big deal?? Then I suggest you manage your finances better, so that you can’t be so easily threatened. If the principal realize that you are not scared of ‘D’, she will be scared of you.She try to be funny with you, you tell her off. ‘D’ grade big deal ah? But till then, enjoy getting your balls squeezed hard if you scared of the ‘D’ grade."

It is not true tat tutors earn more than sch teachers. only perhaps 2% earn more than sch teachers. as a tutor u need to earn 8000 a.mth to break even with teaching pay. Those who think earning 8000 a mth as a tutor can try lor. why else si many teachers dun dare to quit. tuition earns lesser.

Anon 15:48, you need to get your facts right before you spout shit out of your ass. You can't seem to tell the difference between your asshole and a hole in the ground.

MOE hires Malaysians, China and Indonesia foreigners to teach in its secondary schools. Just ask your kid how many teachers do not raise their right arms and sing MAri Kita when they take their morning pledges for school assembly.

In my cousin's school, that's 7. The best are the malaysian chinese teachers. They're gaming the singapore system like there's no tomorrow and they are super duper carefully at not losing this golden pot which covers their hdb monthly instalments and a two storey bungalow in Malaysia.

As an ex-teacher i feel tat teachers shd not complain abt work as u r paid to do the job. if not happy, quit lah. myself n lots of my friends hav quitted. some even paid their bond of 50k plus to quit. dun tell me got no choice. i hav a family of 2 kids to feed and my wife doesnt work n i have zero savings i also quitted. i felt i derserve better than to work with teachers who are only interested in money. i would be insulting myself if i stayed on to work with these disgusting teachers.

Almost the whole of some batch of Chinese PGDE in NIE are FT. LKY do not want Singaporeans to be good in Chinese. So MOE is charge to rigged Chinese lesson to make Singaporeans as bad in chinese as possible.

Then PAP found that they "cannot find" passable chinese teachers as years go by as more and more Chinese iliterate students churn out. They went on hiring spree in PRC.

If we have not FT policy, MOE will need to address our falling Chinese standard head on. FT policy is what that make us very stupid and give PAP a tool for conducting irresponsible policies.

Now, it seems that the other side of truth is out. While MOE is atrocious, teachers are almost equally ugly, given that many ex-teacher stick and head, and fxxk their ex-colleagues.

Veritas thank you for your support.

Teachers deny they have very low IQ. But to an outsider like me, nothing can be clearer of teacher's stupidity and wickedness. Instead of protecting their friends, all teachers hope their friends got a D so that they will be spared.

Instead of ripping up the culprit who is the P, VP, HOD, that cause their misery, teachers masturbated them, hoping that these pervert are satisfied and spared them a D.

MOE teachers are also worse than Judah Iscariot, the worst traitor in the universe who sold Jesus. Teachers attack their benefactor to get behold to their tormentor.

Mostly, those people who dare to stand up against the tyranny of P, VP, and HOD are attacked venomly by all their colleagues especially during meetings. No colleagues will sit beside this person. Any good opinion that this colleague voice out will be humilated not by the bosses, but by ball carrying teachers, hoping to score points.

These maggot teachers are enjoying the fruits of war bring forth by these human right fighters. Yet at the same time, they stick a knife into these courageous teacher whenever possible.

In short, teachers deserve to eat shit.

During my last months in school, there is just one courage person who sits beside me and both of us swagger here and there together like Batman and Robin. He was a retired relief teacher.

The rest of the teacher got a lot of peace time because the boss now got to get rid of a dynamite. Many teachers commented behind my back that I should

"keep low profile and move up the top if you want change the system".

"There are smarter people around. Dont think that you are that good to comment this and that"

"If I don like, I should just resign and don give so much trouble"

Teachers's cowardice and wretchness are so hopeless that I dont understand. I dont understand. Why cant the colleagues unite and burn the principals car? :)

If it happen I bet they wont go to jail. The principal will be fired.

So teachers deserve someone to shit on them. They deserve to be raped by their bosses as they enjoyed the pain and orgasm like nobody. They don deserve any of our sympathy. I am having so much orgasm seeing comments of distress teachers.

In the 4.5 yrs that i got 3Ds i had never did any harm to any other teacher n is probably the least likely to create any trouble yet i was not spared by other teachers. teachers r really dishonest, hypocritical, unethical, unprofessional and evil. may god bless those evil pple who harmed me. as a christian, i shd love my enemy too. i am very happy ever since i quitted.